Natsuyuki Rendezvous Blog Posts

Nothing is more responsible for directing men and women to the bottle than love. In its name, alcohol is used—day in and day out—by the desperate for courage, by the libidinous to lubricate their [...]
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I cannot remember the last time I stumbled upon an anime whose female lead was a thirty-something widowed woman. Come to think of it, Natsuyuki Rendezvous was almost devoid of scenes in high school. It was a breath of fresh … Continue reading →
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Title: Natsuyuki Rendezvous Genre: Drama, Romance, Supernatural Rating: 8.3/10 Summary: A young man with poor eyesight named Hazuki works part-time in a flower shop and falls hard for the shop-owner Rokka. But what happens when he discovers that residing in [...]
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So this Summer I mentioned getting an inexplicable craving for a GOOD hetero romance show after reading the plot for Natsuyuki Rendezvous. Did I get what I was looking for? Read on to find out. Genres: drama, romance, supernatural Themes: … Continue reading →
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Natsuyuki Rendezvous VS. Zakuro Watched via Crunchyroll/DVD WHITNEY CRYSTAL PLOT: Natsuyuki Rendezvous is the perfect story to be adapted to 11 episodes. With its simple and compact story line, nothing really gets left out and lose ends are wrapped up. The show follows the premise of a peculiar love triangle. I would say the show’s … Continue reading »
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What's it like, as a victim of the haze of over-intoxication, to sober up within a dream &mdash; to have to master lucidity within a consciousness at once your own and not your own &mdash; only to discover the shackles of such a sleep, the clench of your captor's keep? After agreeing (while drunk and depressed over something Rokka said) to let Atsushi "borrow" his body, Ryōsuke finds himself trapped in a blended fairytale &mdash; where Thumbelina adopts Rokka's visage and the scenery comes directly from drawings born from a mind and hand long since wheeled away under a sheet from a hospital room.
While Natsuyuki Rendezvous started with a supernatural situation, it just got surreal.&nbsp; Actually, the plot got absurd(ist) starting in episode 5, but I had other points to make within word limits and NONE OF THAT MATTERS NOW. Well, some of it does. Ryōsuke&rsquo;s prolonged captivity (the duration of better than half of this series) definitely proves Atsushi&rsquo;s selfishness. But it also proves him the (anti-)hero as well. I&rsquo;ll explain:
Ryōsuke (for whom I'm assuming we're all, as viewers, rooting) must struggle against a familiar yet foreign environment and reconcile his conscious aesthetic associations regarding Rokka with what is actually Atsushi's pedestalled version of her (Thumbelina) in the prison dreamscape in order to return to the real world and the real Rokka. This is still selfishness on Ryōsuke&rsquo;s part, though throughout his internal internment, he does grow to base arguments for his release on earnest concern for Rokka's sake. All the while, however, Atsushi's selfishness is growing, and this is what foreshadows his downfall as suitor as well as the ultimate disappointment in terms of the end of the series.
For Atsushi, every moment spent in the physical realm brings up more attachments which must be dealt with before he can relinquish Ryōsuke&rsquo;s body: his belongings which Rokka never got rid of as promised (because of her selfishness), the temptation of physical sensations which haven&rsquo;t been felt for three years, and of course lingering emotions for Rokka. The latter is the hardest with which to deal, obviously, as that is what&rsquo;s kept Atsushi literally hanging around for three years. But soon after Atsushi selfishly abducts his former belongings with Ryōsuke&rsquo;s able body (inconsiderate for how their absence would make Rokka feel), Rokka has to go and interrupt the spirit from his own closure for her own sake.
Tempting Atsushi with her recognition of his very soul despite it being hosted by another body, Rokka seeks what every woman wants: a solid answer. What she ends up giving him is what he needs: closure. Is this selfishness? In a word, yes. Undoubtedly, you all laughed when I invoked &ldquo;Shakespeare&rdquo; in the previous Impressions post, but one cannot ignore the parallel of Rokka's "You still have a habit of putting tools in your pocket," where "tools" refers to a pair of scissors intended for a suicide ritual, to "I will kiss thy lips. Haply some poison yet doth hang on them," where the hapless female lover (Juliet) relinquishes her all to the void upon being deprived of her lover's prospect of life. It's just too perfect. Selfish how though? Rokka is considerate enough of Ryōsuke's getting lost in the woods after she's volunteered herself for sacrifice, but not so much his efforts and heartbreak despite her admitted love for him.
Remember how last post I said the determining factor to how this all ends would depend on who it was that would break the selfishness cycle? Well, yeah, (*spoilers*) it's Atsushi. While Ryōsuke does manage to free himself from the confines of Atsushi&rsquo;s ensnarement, he does so only for his own sake and to ultimately find himself in Atsushi&rsquo;s proverbial shoes &mdash; an indiscernible apparition subject to third-party envy regarding the goings-on of real life. Rokka's ready to throw in her mortal towel, because her regrets are swept up in her own selfish desire to be with the husband she was formally resigned to having lost forever ... future happiness be damned. It is only Atsushi's selflessness that brings Rokka and Ryōsuke together ... not by butting out, but by providing Ryōsuke with the opportunity of giving Atsushi the chance to say goodbye in Rokka's eyes. After Atsushi takes the high road by not killing his former wife, Rokka and Ryōsuke are free to love as lovers love &mdash; intimately, or so the series leads viewers to believe. Rokka now knows and appreciates the sacrifice Ryōsuke&nbsp;made, and he knows that she fell in love with the pre-posessed him. As a bonus, Atsushi receives the storybook happy ending, literally. He is depicted in a garden of flowers advancing towards Thumbelina Rokka. &nbsp;And then the issue arises:
Natsuyuki Rendezvous hits at the heart for all the right reasons, with no contrivances except&nbsp;genuine human frailty. The faults of all the characters are what make them so identifiable and believable, the series so affective. So why then does the audience need to see Atsushi clinging on, in epilogue fashion, to be acknowledged by a "grandchild" twice removed from any relative influence of his genes? Even if Rokka's child was conceived while Atsushi was in Ryōsuke's body, the boy's age makes Atsushi's sustained haunting seem silly. So this intrusion serves no other purpose but to showcase the fact that Atsushi staying out of the way of Rokka and Ryōsuke's relationship frames the specter as the benevolent hero for merely relinquishing his obsession's destructiveness. Perhaps that is the true message, avoiding passion-based attachments? But wasn't the whole series built around pursuing such passions? It's a sloppy mess of an ending, and one that should've been left on the cutting room floor. Natsuyuki Rendezvous is a fantastic series, but one that runs roughly five (arguably four, with some visual editing) minutes too long.
Natsuyuki Rendezvous&nbsp;is now streaming on Crunchyroll.
Impressions: Natsuyuki Rendezvous Eps 7-11 was originally published on Ani-Gamers (www.anigamers.com) on October 1, 2012 at 9:00 AM. Unless you are reading this in an RSS reader or a blog aggregator that credits the original authors, this version has likely been illegally copied (or "scraped") from our site. If you believe a site has scraped our content, please contact us so we can take action against the offender.
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Written by: Cholisose at Sea Slugs! Anime Blog(Note: Since this post focuses on the final episode specifically as well as the series in general, there will be spoilers for the show’s ending.) Summary: While Hazuki watches on in ghost form, Rokka has realized that Atsushi is possessing Hazuki’s body. But even though she’s finally been reunited with her dead husband, she can’t [...]
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Written by: Cholisose at Sea Slugs! Anime Blog(Note: Since this post focuses on the final episode specifically as well as the series in general, there will be spoilers for the show’s ending.) Summary: While Hazuki watches on in ghost form, Rokka has realized that Atsushi is possessing Hazuki’s body. But even though she’s finally been reunited with her dead husband, she can’t [...]
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The religious-themed Haibane Renmei was released as an inexpensive box-set last week, and a number of outlets have since reviewed it. ANN’s Theron gives it an “A” and comments on the purposely vagueness of religious aspects of the series, but how many will comment on these themes (us). [Anime News Network] Stig Høgset, a big [...]
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If there was ever a series that was hard to pin to down, hard to love but also hard to really hate, it's Summer 2012's Josei slice of life, supernatural, romance show, Natsuyuki Rendezvous. The Josei genre is definitely home to some really deep, emotional and mature shows, with the likes of stuff like NANA at the forefront and smaller, cuter series like Kuragehime in the back. With that said, Its actually quite difficult to place Natsuyuki Rendezvous in a particular category. What can be said is that Natsuyuki Rendezvous is a series that will send you through a wringer of emotions. These will range from pleasant to exciting and cover the other side of the spectrum with tear jerking sadness and even deep frustration. The series is an odd, unpredictable beast. Just when it seems like you've got a handle on what its about, it takes a sharp turn, never truly falling in line with expectations. The result is something truly different, that will definitely incite all types of emotions, opinions and feelings.
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This is review number eighty and thanks to a broken hard drive, I’ll be reviewing the Summer 2012 anime lineup now. Yeah, I have a lot to see in the other lineup but the hard drive I store it in is now broken. Oh well. The anime I’ll be reviewing is Natsuyuki Rendezvous that is [...]
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Natsuyuki Rendezvous is a tale of two halves, it was an excellent series right up until episode six, at which point things started to go very wrong and it slid down into the pits of mediocrity. This is not to say that the series was not enjoyable, because it was, however, there were some distinct [...]
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Too. Freaking. Cute. A little late (sorry folks, more bulk reviews of the remaining episodes to follow), but here goes… After epi 4’s body-swappy flavoured cliff-hanger ending, I thought epi 5 really delivered not only on the romantic tension and comedic intervals fronts, but it was also gorgeously animated, and epi 6 did not disappoint [...]
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This series may have been a fairytale romance in more of the literal sense than metaphorical, but there’s no doubt that the ending was a storybook one through and through.
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As Natsuyuki Rendezvous came to a close, I realise that it may not have been perfect but it ended on a high note. [The series review will be at the bottom after the review of the last 2 episodes] These last two episodes regained the high quality with which the series started and also managed … Continue reading »
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Finally, the final episode ended with soooo heart warming plot twist. Ahhh, this anime was so lovely. The best josei anime I’ve ever seen. Well, I’ve seen Sakamichi No Apollon, another josei anime, which was wonderful too, all about jazz. Yes, anime main characters are usually very young, the age range of characters are mostly high [...]
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